Novel coronavirus death toll tops 3,000 in U.S.

The number of people who died of the novel coronavirus on the US territory has topped 3,000, the Johns Hopkins University said, citing information obtained from federal and local authorities, Trend reports citing TASS.

According to the updated report, a total of 163,429 people were diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in the United States, 3,008 of them died and 5,764 recovered.

The United States has the biggest number of confirmed cases so far, surpassing Italy, Spain and China. US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he expected the infection to reach its peak in two weeks.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 160 countries, including Russia.

The WHO on March 11 declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. As of now, more than 720,000 people have been infected around the world and over 35,000 have died.

04:05 (GMT+4) The United States has reported more than 160,000 COVID-19 cases, according to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), Trend reports citing Xinhua.

As of 6:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday (2215 GMT), there have been 160,020 confirmed cases in the United States, with 2,953 deaths, an interactive map maintained by the CSSE showed.

In the country, New York state has been hit the hardest by the disease, which has reported more than 66,000 cases and 1,218 deaths.